New BlueClaws manager Mark Parent was on with our buddies Joe and Mike over at the Shore Sports Report (website, Twitter) on Wednesday afternoon. You can hear them every weekday, 3pm - 6 pm, on 1160 WOBM-AM and Fox Sports 1310 (the BlueClaws radio home).

Anyway, here are some snippets from Parent…

• Managing with a catcher’s background: You learn how to deal with different personalities, get the best out of them, like a car salesman. You sell what you need to get across, the Phillie way, make it a part of what they believe in and will be successful with. As a catcher, you deal with so many personalities. The shortstop goes and fields a groundball and hits. A catcher works on every hitter, 30 pitchers over the course of the season, and is always thinking a few innings ahead.
• Philosophy: Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Taking 100 ground balls while going through the motions is not going to make you better. Taking 15 or 20 with a purpose will make you successful. That’s something that Cal Ripken, Sr. instilled in me a long time ago.
• Manager that influenced him: Larry Bowa. I came up in AAA with Larry and through the San Diego organization. The thing that always impressed me was that he was thinking two or three innings ahead and never got caught up in the rah-rah stuff. He never missed a pitch and always saw situations. He was a teacher, always had his players ready, and it always seemed to happen just the way he planned out.
• Why return now: I got the itch…I watched my two kids grow up a little bit, they’re kind of getting tired of me. What I do is baseball, so here I am.
• Balance between winning and development: Development is first and foremost. Each organization that I played for had their philosophies. None of them were that much different but they had their philosophies. You try to win the ballgame but the important thing is that they’re learning…get the guy over from 2nd to third with less than two outs…I wasn’t a very good player but I found my niche helping the team win when I played. You have to find a way to help the team when you’re in there.

And my favorite quote, when asked if he has aspirations to coach or manage in the big leagues…

• “I tell the kids, the back of my baseball card is full. We’re doing this to develop you.”

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 11:31 am and is filed under 2010 BlueClaws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.